Saturday, October 13, 2007

My Dad LOVES to forward e-mail to everyone on his list. Sometimes I open my e-mail account and find 10 or 12 e-mails forwarded from him and that is in only ONE day. The next day can be the same amount or more and before you know it my inbox is chock-full and I get antsy wanting to clean it out.

In the past I always read everything he sent. Not reading the e-mails made me feel disrespectful towards him and I didn't like the feeling. I would keep the e-mails until I had time and that worked for a while; however, it got to a point once where I didn't have time to read the e-mails over a few days and had over 100 waiting for me to read. So, I deleted all of them. It was difficult and I felt terrible.

Even though I didn't want to disrespect him, I felt a little disrespected. Didn't he realize that I wasn't retired like him and didn't have the time to look at them all? Didn't he realize that the e-mails would clutter my inbox and make me feel like reading them was one more responsibility I had added to my day? In all actuality, I felt spammed.

One day I realized that I had NEVER received an e-mail from HIM. They were all forwarded from someone else! That is the same day I realized that it was OK if I didn't read them all.

Today I received several forwards from him and I had time to read them. In comparison to what he has sent in the past, I felt one was the "Cream of Spam". Reading the following made me think of everyone who reads my blog and leaves comments:

The Whale

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her...a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them. Pushing gently around, she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

That is what I feel towards everyone who takes the time to not only read my dribble, but also expends the effort in leaving a comment. Some of the comments have been so uplifting to me and I feel so grateful. I do feel very weighted down by what's going on in my life. I definitely feel tangled and gnarled and sometimes I feel that there is no possible way to stay afloat. Sometimes I want to drown. Reading your comments has helped me to feel free and I thank you.

This posting does not by any means come close to expressing what I'm trying to say. You see, I really have no one to talk to about the way I feel. I can't talk with my parents for various reasons (one is that they will be very judgmental of my husband and it doesn't help the situation). I haven't been able to talk with my husband about the way I feel because he is very stressed out with his job and our financial situation and every talk ends in a fight. I don't tell people I know what's going on either.

As I've previously posted, blogging has been so freeing for me. I feel a lot better getting this stuff out and on top of that there are actually people reading what I feel and commenting on it.